Moradabad RTO: UP-21 office, code, and split districts

UP-21 is the Moradabad code, but the district it serves is smaller than it once was. Amroha became a district of its own in 1997 and now uses UP-23, and Sambhal followed in 2011 with UP-38, so many older UP-21 cars belong to owners who would register elsewhere today.

In UP 21 AB 1234, UP gives the state, Uttar Pradesh, and 21 the Moradabad RTO, followed by the AB series and 1234, the four-digit number. Next door, UP-22 is Rampur and UP-23 is Amroha, so one digit on the plate separates three neighbouring districts.

Worth knowing: Older plates can mislead. A car registered in Amroha before 1997 carries UP-21 and keeps it, as a code does not change when a district is split or an owner moves within Uttar Pradesh. It changes only with a new registration outside the state or a change to the registration details.

Moradabad’s plates follow the same national rule as Rampur’s or Delhi’s. Under Rule 50 of the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989, each vehicle must carry a High Security Registration Plate (HSRP), and new cars sold from 1 April 2019 onward come with it in place.

Worth knowing: If your UP-21 car is older, book its HSRP installation on the booking portal that the Uttar Pradesh Transport Department website points to, and check your vehicle’s date there. Our Uttar Pradesh RTO guide carries the rest of the plate rules.

Moradabad uses UP-21. Two of the codes next to it, UP-23 for Amroha and UP-38 for Sambhal, belong to districts made from parts of Moradabad, so a plate on its own can mislead.

Amroha was created on 15 April 1997 from Moradabad’s Amroha, Dhanaura and Hasanpur tehsils, and was known as Jyotiba Phule Nagar for a time. Sambhal district, once called Bhimnagar, was formed in 2011 from two of Moradabad’s sub-districts, and its office is at Bahjoi.

Directories list one office for Moradabad, a Regional Transport Office in Transport Nagar, which one listing places at Kabir Bhavan on Sambhal Road. No official address page could be checked, so treat the details below as a guide and confirm them before you travel.

Moradabad RTO office, UP-21

Every directory that gives a pincode agrees on 244001, but they do not agree on the hours. Two list 10 am to 5 pm, one of them adding Saturdays, and a third gives 9:30 am to 6:30 pm.

Why some UP-21 cars are now outside Moradabad

A registration code is fixed when a car is first registered, and a later district split does not change it. A car first registered in Hasanpur or Dhanaura before 1997 can still carry UP-21, while a new car bought there today is registered in Amroha under UP-23. The same is true of Sambhal since 2011, now UP-38.

Your district today decides your office, not the code on an older plate. Moradabad addresses go to UP-21, while Amroha, Dhanaura and Hasanpur now belong to Amroha district and register under UP-23, and Sambhal district registers under UP-38.

The finder at the top of this page reads a registration number or code and names the office behind it, which helps when an old UP-21 plate belongs to a car now kept in Amroha or Sambhal.

Moradabad charges the same national fees as the Amroha and Sambhal offices next door, so the fee does not depend on which of them registers your car. Fees are paid on the Vahan portal, by the dealer in the case of a new car.

A Moradabad example: Registering a new car bought on a loan under UP-21 costs ₹600, plus ₹200 for the smart card and ₹1,500 for the hypothecation, which makes ₹2,300 in RTO fees before road tax.

Renewal for a UP-21 car at 15 years costs ₹5,000, or ₹10,000 beyond 20, with ₹500 a month added for a late car renewal and ₹300 for a motorcycle.

Worth knowing: The Rule 81 amounts above leave out service and postal charges, the High Security Registration Plate (HSRP) and road tax, all paid on top in Moradabad.

The dealer applies on Vahan, and your district today decides the code

A new car for a Moradabad district address is registered under UP-21. The dealer applies on the Vahan portal and the Moradabad office approves it, while a buyer from Amroha, Hasanpur or Sambhal is registered in their own district, even at a Moradabad showroom.

A UP-21 car sold to a buyer in Amroha or Sambhal stays UP-21, as all three districts are in Uttar Pradesh, and only the owner’s name on the RC changes. The seller gives notice on Form 29, both sign Form 30, and the fee is ₹300 for a car.

A buyer in Uttarakhand or Delhi needs a No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the Moradabad office first. Whatever the buyer’s state, the insurance must pass to the new owner within 14 days.

Removing a loan (hypothecation) from the RC in Moradabad

Once the lender is paid off, upload Form 35 and the lender’s No Objection Certificate on Vahan, and the Moradabad office issues an RC without the lender’s name, free. Our Uttar Pradesh RTO guide has the checklist of papers to upload with the request.

UP-21 services run on the national Vahan portal for vehicles and the Sarathi portal for licences, as they do in Amroha and Sambhal. Only the reviewing office differs: For a Moradabad address, it is the office on Sambhal Road.

Duplicate RC and RC status check in Moradabad

Form 26 on Vahan replaces a lost, stolen or damaged UP-21 RC for ₹300 on a car, and the Kiwi Insurance RC status tool lets you follow a registration.

Driving licence services in Moradabad

Licence services for Moradabad, from the learner’s test to renewal, are booked on Sarathi, with the driving test taken in person. Maruti Suzuki has listed Moradabad’s test track among those it agreed to automate, and our Uttar Pradesh RTO guide covers the remaining Sarathi and Vahan services.

A Moradabad driver with no valid insurance pays the national fine set by section 196 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, as amended in 2019, which is ₹2,000 for the first offence and ₹4,000 for each one after.

Uttar Pradesh compounds some offences at its own amounts, so pay what the challan on your UP-21 vehicle shows, through echallan.parivahan.gov.in or mParivahan, and check our Uttar Pradesh RTO guide for helmet, seat belt and other fines.

A car registered elsewhere in Uttar Pradesh, in Lucknow or Bareilly for example, keeps its number in Moradabad and needs only an RC address update. One from Uttarakhand, Delhi or any other state has to be registered again under UP-21 after it has been kept in Uttar Pradesh for more than 12 months.

If you are leaving Uttar Pradesh, the same steps apply in reverse: You ask the Moradabad office for a NOC on Form 28, register in the new state, then apply to Uttar Pradesh for a refund of the tax you no longer need.

Worth knowing: Inform your insurer when you move and again once the UP-21 number is issued, so the policy matches the RC. Each form for the move is covered step by step in our Uttar Pradesh RTO guide.

A Moradabad owner whose work moves between states can take a Bharat series (BH) number, so the car moves too without a No Objection Certificate (NOC). Eligible are government, defence and public sector employees, plus private sector staff with Form 60 where the employer runs offices in 4 or more states or union territories.

The format is YY BH #### XX, where YY is the year of first registration, the four digits are allotted at random, and XX represents the alphabetic series, which can be a single letter or two letters. It is black on a white plate, like any other private car. Tax on a BH car below ₹10 lakhs is 8%, collected every 2 years in place of a single payment, and our Uttar Pradesh RTO guide has the rest.

Moradabad, Amroha and Sambhal all use these national forms. Most are filled in online on Vahan or Sarathi, and the PDF is kept for an office that still needs a paper version.

UP-21 forms go to the Moradabad office on Sambhal Road, and the Parivahan Sewa website holds the forms not shown here.